


as fire loves innocence

by andromedaries



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxious Zuko (Avatar), Arranged Marriage, Canon Compliant, Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Ember Island (Avatar), Homophobia, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), If You Squint - Freeform, Internalized Homophobia, Multi, Non-Explicit, Ozai's A+ Parenting, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sibling Incest, Turtleduck(s), Zuko (Avatar)-centric, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, and "corrective" sexual abuse, azula gets actual mental health treatment, azula gets to use the one f bomb, bc after all this i think she deserves it, betrothal, but everyone gets the therapy they deserve and starts recovering in the end, but like it is abuse, endgame: this is suki and her bf sokka and their bf zuko and his gf mai and her gf ty lee, everyone is bi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:09:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25429699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andromedaries/pseuds/andromedaries
Summary: azula was afraid of electric storms, until she became one.but zuko is still her big brother, after all. he's supposed to protect her.(ozai's efforts to arrange azula's betrothal at a young age have unintended consequences)
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar), Azula/Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki/Zuko (Avatar), Zuko/therapy - Relationship, everyone/therapy
Comments: 21
Kudos: 214





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> years and ages were difficult to nail down - i did my best to cross reference on-screen chronology with the avatar wiki, which has zuko born in 83AG and azula in 85AG, as well as my current personal headcanon that zuko was born in november and azula in late march. i considered aging them up a bit due to subject matter just to feel marginally less gross writing some bits (nothing is explicit, but PLEASE mind the tags this is some heavy shit) but i ended up trying to stick with canon as far as what's in the show and what's on the fan wiki. i haven't read the comics so fuck that noise about azula in a straitjacket she gets actual mental health care in the end.  
> please note my intention is not to romanticize or sexualize the deep cycle of abuse in the fire nation royal family. my intention is more to consider how complex it is.
> 
> title is from lemony snicket's beatrice letters: "i will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence, and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong."

_ Fire Nation Royal Palace, 88AG _

A deafening crack of thunder rattles the palace windows, jolting Zuko awake.  _ It’s not that scary _ , he tells himself as lightning shatters the sky outside, throwing long shadows across his room.  _ 1… 2… 3… 4… _ he counts before another earth-shaking boom, like his mother showed him to do last time there was a storm. Four miles away. The lightning cracks again, even brighter, and in the silver-blue light he sees his door is now open a few inches. Before he can gasp, his eyes land on a small pale face illumined in the doorway. 

“Zula?” he asks, rubbing his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

She hesitates, but the thunder crashes again, and she darts over to his bed and hops up onto it, hiding under the covers. “Mom told me to go back to bed. But I can’t.” 

“Oh,” he says, “it’s okay, Azula, you can stay here with me. I’ll show you how I stopped being scared of storms. The lightning gets to us before the thunder, so if you count the seconds between them, that’s how many miles away the storm is. Then it’s kinda like a game!” 

Another slash of lightning and boom of thunder shake the palace, right on top of each other. Azula huddles deeper under the blankets, and Zuko pats her shoulder comfortingly. He is her big brother, after all. It’s his job to protect her.

When the crashes start drifting further apart, and further away, she pokes her head out from under the covers. “I’m not scared,” she insists. “I just… don’t like how loud it is.”

“Me neither. But Mom said thunderstorms are so loud in the Fire Nation because they’re how the dragon spirits talk to us. The lightning is their fire-breathing and the thunder is their roar.”

Azula considers this. “That’s kinda cool, I guess.” Then, her face turning eager, “do the dragon spirits talk so loud to us because they like us best?”

“Yeah, I guess so!” Zuko smiles. “I guess the other nations have their own spirits. But I think the dragons are the coolest ones.”

Lightning flashes outside again, and fear flits back into Azula’s amber eyes. Zuko reaches out for her little shoulder again. “Do you want me to braid your hair into a dragon tail for you? Mom showed me how yesterday.” She nods. He thinks about it for a second, then hands her a pillow. “Here, lay on your stomach and I can sit next to you. That way I can reach.”

She curls up around the pillow and he tries to remember how Mom showed him, starting at the top and adding more hair from the sides as you go. When he gets to the ends there’s pieces sticking out everywhere though, so he undoes the braid, combing gently through her hair with his fingers, and starts over. By the time he finishes it the second time, his little sister is asleep, the sounds of her soft little snores punctuated by the rain still pounding against the window.

_ Fire Nation Royal Palace, 90AG _

Thunder rumbles closer in the night. _1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6…_ _Only six miles away?_ Zuko thinks. The rain hadn’t hit yet, but the air was damp and heavy, thick with the ominous calm that precedes a storm. Usually Azula would be here by now - even before the storms started, she seemed to sense them coming, as if she could feel the static electricity in the air buzzing under her skin. But then again, she has been acting... different lately, ever since she started firebending training. She had only just started a few months ago, and he had been so proud of how fast she caught up to him. But then she started nailing katas he’s _still_ struggling with, and showing off _all_ the time, and now Dad doesn’t even seem to notice when he masters one if she had gotten it first. 

But then the thunder peals again, close and deafening, rattling deep into his ribs, and the smug little smirk on the Azula in his mind is gone. In the lightning’s guttering glow, all he can picture is his little sister, usually so strong and independent, trying to be brave, but scared out of her skin by the exploding storm. 

He slides out of bed and grabs his robe. Careful to shut his huge, creaking door silently behind him, he sneaks down the hallway, pulling on his robe-sleeves as he goes. 

The driving rain drowns out any sound her door makes when he pushes it open. She’s curled up in a tiny ball when he reaches her bed. 

“Pssst! Azula!” he whispers, and she jolts upright. 

“Zuzu! What are you-” she’s cut off by bellowing thunder, and she involuntarily burrows back down into the bed a few inches, but her eyes flare in defiance of her automatic response. “I’m  _ not _ scared.”

“I know! Me neither! I, uh… just thought you might want me to braid your hair again,” he offers. Big brothers can do that, at least. 

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that would be okay,” she concedes, and he clambers up into her bed. “I can do yours too if you want. Ty Lee showed me how. She’s really good at it. I need to practice so she’s not better than me.” Her lower lip pouts a bit. 

He starts dividing her hair into sections, combing through them with his hands. “Yeah, you can practice on me if you want. You don’t have to be the best at everything though. You’re already the best at firebending. You’re even better than Dad was when he was your age.” 

“But I  _ love  _ being the best at firebending. I know I don’t  _ have _ to be the best at everything. I  _ want _ to be.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just braids her hair in silence. Her words worry him - doesn’t she know different people were good at different things?  _ Everyone is good at something _ , Mom had told him when he had lamented Azula’s firebending skill surpassing his.  _ Even people who can’t bend at all. Your grandmother on my side was a non-bender, but she was a master herbalist. She could make all kinds of medicines and cordials, even poisons.  _

He absentmindedly ties off the end of the braid, hands finding the silk hair tie she’d left on her nightstand. Then she turns around to face him, but he doesn’t blink, still lost in thought. 

She waves a hand in front of him. “Turn around, dum-dum. Your turn.” 

He does. Her tiny hands start sifting through his hair, and he lets his eyes close, listening to the sound of the rain. She braids and unbraids it over and over and over, until the thunder is just a distant rumble.

_ Ember Island, 91AG _

The sun is sunk almost below the Ember Island shoreline, still flushing the sky faintly orange against deep blue as they walk back toward the beach house. Dry summer lightning crackles faintly on the distant horizon, soft as the sea breeze.

“Why do you get a souvenir?” Azula complains, jabbing at the blue-and-white painted mask in Zuko’s hands. “Mom never buys me anything from the Ember Island Theatre!”

“Because you don’t need a mask to be Noren! And you  _ always _ get to be Noren. Mom said if I have to be the Dark Water Spirit every time we play Love Amongst the Dragons, I should at least have the mask to look the part. You already look like Noren!”

“Noren has his emperor cape! They sell the capes after the play too, I should get to wear one for the final duel. Winning doesn’t look as cool without a cape!”

“Why don’t you ask Dad then? He already bought you, like, ten bags of fire gummies just because you made puppy-rabbit eyes at him,” Zuko snipes back, smacking the paper bag of candy in her fist with the back of his hand. “Dad never buys me snacks.”

“That’s because you never even  _ ask _ , dum-dum.” She bites into a gummy-dragon and yanks its head off with her teeth. 

He looks at the ground, kicking the sand with his bare foot. Does Azula really not see how differently their dad looks at the two of them? “Maybe if you just  _ shared _ yours once in a while…” he grumbles. 

“You never ask me either!” she insists, pointing her decapitated gummy-dragon at him.

“Mom says it’s not polite to eat other people’s food unless they offer it.” 

“Oh,  _ please _ ,” Azula snorts, “Mom has a rule about  _ everything _ . You’re the  _ prince _ , Zuko, people are supposed to be polite to  _ us _ , not the other way around.” She rolls her eyes and pops the rest of the gummy-dragon into her mouth. “Alright. I’ll share my gummies if you practice kuai ball with me tomorrow. We’re  _ so _ close to nailing the move with the shoulder vault.”

Now it’s Zuko’s turn to roll his eyes. “Let me guess, you’ll be doing all the vaulting and I’ll be doing all the shouldering. As usual.” 

“Well yeah, Zuzu, you’re the big brother! You can’t vault off my shoulders, you’d squish me. Dum-dum.” She throws a gummy-dragon at him.

He catches it. “Please. You’re almost as tall as me now.” He chews on the fire-gummy moodily, but all the same, he’ll let her practice the vault tomorrow. He is her big brother, after all. 

_ Fire Nation Royal Palace, 92AG _

Azula is seven when silver-blue lightning crackles from her palms the first time, in the late afternoon after the day’s firebending lesson. Zuko watches her conjure the electric sparks, the way they glow off her enraptured eyes as she tosses the arc of lightning from hand to hand, the way her laugh shows every one of her sharp little teeth. Then her eyes flash straight at him, and he knows in that beatific smile that she won’t fear electric storms any longer. She  _ is _ the electric storm, now, and it’s his turn to be afraid. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ozai's efforts to arrange azula's betrothal at a young age have unintended consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is where all the yikes tags happen, pls mind them

_ Fire Nation Royal Turtleduck Pond, 93AG _

Once he’s switched out his muddy fountain-water-soaked clothes for dry ones, ten-year-old Zuko sulks over to the far side of the palace, stopping by the kitchens for some bread on his way to the pond. Sitting by the edge, he tears off little bread bits until the little family of turtleducks swims over to him. He tosses the pieces gently, like his mother does, and the ducklings quack happily between bites of their snack.

He jumps when he hears footsteps behind him, but it’s only Mai, dressed in dry clothes now that could only be Azula’s. 

“Sorry,” she says, sitting down beside him, “didn’t mean to scare you.” 

He doesn’t look at her. “I’m sorry too,” he mumbles, “about earlier. And for saying girls are crazy.” 

“I know. It’s okay,” she says. Then almost laughs a bit, and Zuko looks up at the sound. “Maybe not all girls, just Azula.” 

“She is!!” Zuko agrees, “I mean, have you seen how she feeds turtleducks?? I tried it once and their mom bit me!”

“Yeah, I saw her throw a whole loaf of bread at one of them once. The mom came after her, but she just waved some fire in its face and it backed off.”

“Wow...” he says, then laughs a bit. “Even the turtleducks know Azula is crazy.” 

Mai smiles faintly. He offers her a chunk of the bread, and his hand feels warm where her knuckles brush against his when she takes it. They toss little morsels to the turtleducks in silence for a bit. 

“Wanna know something else crazy Azula did?” Mai asks him suddenly. 

“Sure,” he says, looking up at her again, and he might be imagining it but he thinks she might be blushing?

She looks away to hide it when she says, “We were playing truth or dares and she dared me to kiss you. Isn’t that nuts?” 

_ Oh _ , he thinks, feeling the heat rising to his own face. “Yeah, completely nuts.” 

“Yeah,” Mai adds hastily, “I think she just said that because I saw her and Ty Lee kiss the other day. I don’t think she wanted me to see.” 

Wait, Zuko thinks, frozen for a second. Azula and Ty Lee? Did girls do that? Were girls even allowed to do that? He wasn’t the best at remembering but weren’t there laws against... that? Would she get in trouble? His thoughts are racing with worry when he realizes Mai’s stream of flustered words is also bleeding into them. 

“-shouldn’t have even brought it up, I’m sorry, it was a stupid idea, Azula is craz-“

“Wait, Mai, it’s okay!” he says, because she’s still blushing furiously and he doesn’t want her to feel bad. “I mean, it is a stupid idea, but,” and there’s his own cheeks warming again, “it was a dare though.” She looks up at him. “I mean, you know how Azula is. She’ll call you a komodo-chicken for  _ ever _ if you-” and he had been about to say “if you don’t,” but the word is cut off by the quick little peck of her cold lips. He’s startled still for a moment, and she is too, and for a second they just stare wide-eyed at each other, but before he can decide what to do, a voice calling makes them jump apart.

“Mai! There you are dear, it’s time to come home for dinner. Oh- Prince Zuko! Good evening, your highness.”

Mai looks at him uncertainly. “I have to go,” she says, and runs off to join her mother. He watches as they leave, her mother fretting all the way.

“-were so worried when we couldn’t find you with the other girls, but I’m glad you’re making friends with Prince Zuko as well, and- oh honey, where are your clothes? Are these Princess Azula’s? Oh, they’re beautiful... but honey, what happened?”

“They got wet,” Mai answers quietly. “I fell in the fountain.” 

“Oh  _ dear _ , how on earth-? Well it certainly is kind of Princess Azula to lend you her own clothes, but sweetheart, you really must be more careful. It’s terribly unladylike to be roughhousing in fountains. At the  _ palace _ of all places, my goodness…”

_ Fire Nation Royal Palace, 93AG _

It’s been a few weeks since the fountain incident, and over a year since Azula first bent lightning, when Zuko is startled awake in the middle of a warm, clear night by the sound of his door creaking open. He’s confused at first - there were very few people who the guards would let disturb the crown prince’s night sleep, and Azula hasn’t come to his room in years. 

“Mom?” he asks sleepily. 

“No, dum-dum, it’s me,” Azula hisses, climbing onto his bed. She used to just curl up next to him, but now she’s practically on top of him, shaking him awake. 

“Azula? What...? What is it? Something wrong?” But she stops his words and shocks him silent with her mouth on his mouth. 

“Azula!” he yelps, eyes wide, pushing her away. “What are you doing??”

“Shh!” she hisses, clapping a hand over his mouth. “Are you trying to wake up the whole palace?” 

And no, he thinks, definitely not, because what if the guards rushed in here and saw this? It was worse than Azula with Ty Lee, girls might not be supposed to do this together but siblings  _ definitely _ weren’t. He shakes his head no under her hand. 

“I just wanted to tell you about my... date I had earlier. Dinner with some nobleman’s son. Dad is trying to set up my betrothal.” 

_ Betrothal?! _ Zuko makes an indignant sound and yanks her hand off his mouth. “Betrothal?” he hisses, “Zula, you’re too young for a betrothal! You’re only nine!” 

She laughs bitterly. “So? You’re only ten, and you already have one.” 

“What?! No I don’t! And I’m ten and a half!” 

“Sure you do. Dad’s been arranging it with Mai’s parents for years. It’s pretty obvious honestly. I thought my little nudge the other day would finally make you pick up on it, dum-dum.”

He burns at the thought. Mai?? They had only kissed on a dare! That didn’t mean he wanted to marry her! And why would Azula know if he didn’t even know? “Zula, this is crazy. Betrothal is for grownups, and teenagers... are you sure that’s what Dad meant? We’re just kids!” 

She gives her mirthless laugh again. “He said if I was old enough to kiss my friend I was old enough to kiss a suitor.” Zuko is horrified- how had their dad found out about her kissing Ty Lee? What would he do if he found out about this? But then he hears Azula’s laugh break into something more like a sob. “Maybe  _ he’s _ old enough... he’s practically a grownup already, he’s twice as tall as me-” and Zuko realizes she’s talking about her... suitor, but then she kisses him again, and he doesn’t push her off because he can feel the tears on her cheeks and he wants to comfort her but doesn’t know how, so he doesn’t kiss her back, because this still doesn’t feel right, he just kind of...  _ lets _ her, and between her fast nervous kisses she’s saying “I don’t want to marry him, Zuzu, I can’t, I don’t want to get married,” sniffling and shaking, over and over and over. His brainwaves are a flat line. Blank. He has no idea what to do, so he just rubs her back and tries not to make it worse, tries to ignore the hot sick twisting in his guts, tries to remember that’s his  _ sister _ in his lap, kissing him frantically, and there’s no way he could  _ like _ it but his face is burning and his body is betraying him and he feels all the confusion and shame and fear sink like a slimy rock into his stomach when he realizes that she has noticed. He watches petrified as she freezes and looks down, her face flaming red to match and she looks everywhere but up at him as she stutters, “Oh... Zuzu... I didn’t mean to...” But she can’t seem to get any more words out and she just scrambles away, dropping to the floor from his bed and darting out of his room before he can say a word. And then she’s gone, and the hot slick guilt in his guts feels like it’s going to overflow until it fills up his lungs and for a long precipice of a moment he thinks it will choke him, but then it decides to settle for leaking from his eyes instead, and he can’t stop it, so he lets it, until he finally succumbs to fitful sleep.

_ Fire Nation Royal Turtleduck Pond, 93AG _

Zuko tears off another piece of bread, worrying it back and forth in his fingers until it’s rolled into a dense little marble before tossing it to the turtleducks. They quack impatiently at him, but he doesn’t notice, his mind a thousand miles away. He hadn’t seen Azula all day. Had she been summoned for another one of her “dates”? What were they doing with her that took this long? Dad wouldn’t set her up with anyone who would hurt her… right? It was her dad’s job to protect her just like it was her brother’s... but Zuko couldn’t do anything about this.

Would she come… tell him about it again this time? 

He rips into the bread again. 

“That’s a huge bite for them, sweetheart,” says a soft voice behind him, and Zuko jumps. Then the cold, creeping shame slithers through him again at the thought his mother has just interrupted. Her warm hand finds his shoulder, and the other takes the bread chunk from him as she sinks gracefully to sit on the pond bank beside him.

“Here,” she says gently, breaking the pieces smaller, “better for their little mouths. Wouldn’t want to bite off more than they can chew!” 

He leans into her shoulder, but doesn’t say a word. 

“Are you alright, sweetheart? You’ve been so quiet lately. Is something bothering you?”

And he squeezes his eyes shut, swallowing against an angry lump in his throat, because her voice sounds so worried, and he doesn’t even know where he would start if he could tell her. Which he can’t. But maybe... he could ask…

“Am I… betrothed already?” he gulps. “To Mai?” 

He looks up at his mother finally, and she looks taken aback. “Well, no, dear, not yet. We’ve discussed the idea with Mai’s parents, but nothing is set in stone. My goodness, where did you hear about this? Did Mai say something? Her parents are overstepping quite a bit if they’ve told their daughter it’s already a done deal-”

“No, Mai didn’t say anything about it. Azula did. She said she was already betrothed and I was too, and I said that was crazy. We’re just kids! She’s way too young-”

“Shh, honey, it’s okay. She was mistaken. Your father has been interviewing some potential matches for her who have expressed interest, but none have proven worthy yet. And besides, marriage is years away for both of you,” she soothes, stroking his hair. But when he looks up at her, her face is not nearly as reassuring as the practiced cadence of her voice. In fact, her expression looks even more worried than before, because she and Zuko both know that Ozai does not tell her everything, and Ursa, with her years of practice reading between his lines, is unsettled by this sliver of a revelation. 

And Zuko, cold fear tightening his chest, can speak no more on the topic, lest his shrewd mother deduce anything further.

_ Fire Nation Royal Palace, 94AG _

The next time eleven-year-old Zuko’s sleep is interrupted, Azula creeps in without a sound. She’s already climbed into his bed when he wakes abruptly to hands tugging at his shirt.

His blood runs cold when she tries to clamber into his lap. 

“Wait, Azula, stop!” he hisses, panic rising in his throat as he shoves her off. “This isn’t going to help! I’ll help you find a way to get out of the betrothal, we can figure it out. Maybe Mom can help, I-” her little hand is clapped over his mouth again. 

“ _ Don’t _ you dare tell Mom. You can’t tell anyone. And besides, I don’t want to get out of it.”

“What? But you said… you said you didn’t want to get married!”

“I didn’t want to marry  _ that _ guy,” she says as she sits with one knee on either side of his legs, and he swallows hard, willing himself not to think of last time, not to think of  _ anything _ , but his thoughts are racing as she keeps talking. “Dad found me someone better,” and she’s practically pinning him down, “I got to see him firebend today,” and he could throw her off if he had to, he’s still bigger than her, “way more impressive than the last few,” but that’s his  _ sister _ , he can’t hurt her, he’s supposed to protect her, “almost as good as me, and not so much older, he’s still in army training -” 

And he’s doing better, this time, at staying in control, despite the heat building between them, until it’s her  _ hands _ in his lap now, grabbing at him, rubbing-

“Azula what are you  _ doing-”  _ he chokes, but she silences him with a kiss, and a hot press of fingertips against his shoulder that feels like the kind of warning only firebenders can give.

“I’m only doing you a favor, Zuzu,” she hisses when he tries to push her off. “Passing along what I know, so you know what will be expected of you and Mai.”

“Mai? What-”

“ _ Heirs _ , dum-dum. Dad told me about how we have a responsibility to have kids who are suitable heirs to succeed us. That’s why it’s so important we pick good mates. I’m getting a head start on finding a good one so that when you and Mai’s kids end up being non-benders, my line can take over. Can’t have a Fire Lord with no fire.”

“What? My kids will too be firebenders!” Zuko protests, thoughts barely keeping up with his pounding heart and burning skin.

“I’m only teasing, Zuzu. I’m sure your kids will be firebending, knife-throwing little prodigies. I’m getting a head start because I’m  _ precocious _ .” 

And like punctuation to her words, her hands slide back down to his lap again, inside his pajama pants this time,  _ shh Zuzu it’ll feel good I promise, just relax, _ and he chokes because it’s  _ bad  _ and he feels sick but it  _ does  _ feel good, and when she pulls his hand into her own waistband  _ I’ll show you how it works for me too  _ he doesn’t want to let her but he doesn’t want to hurt her, and he’s still too hot and scared and senseless to push her away like he wants to until it’s too late for him, dizzy and gasping, and then it’s too late for her, flushed and breathless and still somehow holding all the power. 

Then as silently as she’d come, she was gone again, leaving him alone with the heat in his guts curdling into disgust and shame even worse than last time. 

He doesn’t cry this time. He sets his sheets on fire instead, so he won’t have to smell her on them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> arranged marriages fall out of favor. so does zuko.

_ Fire Nation Royal Palace, 95AG _

The next time not-quite-twelve-year-old Zuko is woken by a creaking door in the dead of night, the horrible familiar dread of his sister’s nocturnal visits barely has time to sweep through him before she shocks it right back out with her sing-songy voice.

“Dad’s going to kill you!” She warbles. “Really, he is.”

“Ha-ha, Azula, nice try,” he grumbles warily. She was always playing nasty tricks on him. Was this some new mind game of hers? Was this going to turn into… what it had turned into last time? His stomach twists painfully as she talks, but then the things she’s saying just get more and more horrifying, and he knows she’s lying but this is her most evil trick yet, and she sounds like she’s mocking him but she says she’s just trying to warn him so he can run away before-

“What is going  _ on  _ here?” asks his mother’s sharp voice in the doorway, and he’s so relieved, and he’s petrified, because what  _ was  _ going on here? What was Azula here for that his mother had interrupted? 

“It’s time for a talk!” their mother snaps, pulling Azula through the door behind her, and Zuko can’t move a muscle beyond the thunderous pounding of his heart,  _ Azula always lies, Azula always lies…  _

Then less than a week later, their mother is gone and their grandfather is dead and their father is the Fire Lord, and Zuko doesn’t know for sure if what happened is really what his sister said would happen… but she certainly looks pleased about it. 

_ Fire Nation Royal Palace Grounds, 95AG _

“Argh! Why can’t I land this stupid move!” Zuko fumes to himself, stabbing one of his dao swords into the ground in frustration. Sweat drips into his eyes and he swipes at it impatiently, sticking the other sword in the ground as well to pause for a sip of water. 

“Probably because you’re exhausted, Nephew,” comes his uncle’s voice behind him. “Why don’t you come inside for some dinner? You’ve got to keep your strength up if you’re going to continue practicing this late.”

He may have a point, Zuko thinks grudgingly, gulping at his water. Now that he had begun formal dao instruction in addition to his firebending training, not to mention school, it took a lot of energy to continue practicing on his own time. But this was the only time that he felt like... himself anymore. Besides, if he kept at it until he was too tired to think, he didn’t have to think about where his mother might be now. Or what trick Azula was going to play on him next. Or the possibility that she wasn’t tricking him at all, and his grandfather really had ordered him dead... and his father really had almost gone through with it. 

“Not hungry. I’ll come in when I can get through this kata without blowing the landing.” He sits to rest, just for a moment. 

“I admire your determination, Prince Zuko, but you are going to burn yourself out! Rest and recovery are just as vital to improvement as practice. And besides, you’ve already mastered one new kata this week! Your improvement has been remarkable under Master Piandao.”

“I wish it was my firebending that was improving,” Zuko grumbles, stabbing moodily at the dirt with the tip of one blade. “I’ve been stuck on the weight shift of this one sequence for  _ days _ , and Azula got it on her second try this morning. Why is everything so easy for her? She doesn’t even have to try!”

Uncle Iroh sits beside him. “Prince Zuko… I think you may be experiencing these roadblocks with your firebending because of roadblocks within yourself.”

“What does that even  _ mean _ , Uncle?” Zuko gripes. 

Iroh sighs deeply. “Losing your mother has been difficult for you, Nephew. This turmoil affects your firebending more than it affects Azula’s because your bending is connected to your inner flame in a way hers is not. Prodigious though she may be, I fear that if she stays on this path, detached as she is from the source of her fire... I fear a day will come that she loses control of it.”

Zuko shivers. “I hope not. She’s crazy enough already.” 

“It is never easy to learn one’s own way when one is constantly being compared to another.”

The sweat on his skin is cooling rapidly in the evening air. It may never get truly cold in the Fire Nation, but winter was still coming to siphon his sunlight and lengthen his shadow and bleed even more energy from his firebending. He feels the familiar dread of it whispering into the back of his mind, and forces it away, standing up to get his blood moving again. Wasting his time dreading something as inevitable as the winter wouldn’t solve any of his problems. 

“I wouldn’t even mind her being better than me if she wasn’t such a brat about it. I swear, Uncle, the better she gets at firebending, the more she rubs it in my face. And Dad practically encourages it!” He pulls his swords out of the dirt and starts warming up again. “She wasn’t like this when Mom was here.”

“I’m afraid you’re right, Prince Zuko. Your mother had a balancing influence on both your sister and my brother. And I’m afraid, in Ursa’s absence, the footsteps your sister has left to follow in belong to a man deeply callused by years of war.”

Zuko paces through the steps of the kata he’s been working on, marking them out for his muscle memory. “My dad’s footsteps, huh. Is that why she only ever stops ignoring me these days when she wants to remind someone she’s better than them?” And he won’t say it, won’t even let himself think it, but part of him is relieved she’s ignoring him, even thinks she’s right to; there’s a cold little slither in his guts that dreads her attention, for fear he will accidentally take advantage of it again.

It wasn’t his fault… was it? He stomps away the slithering whispering  _ it was _ .

His uncle sighs again. He seems to do a lot of that since he returned from Ba Sing Se. “Perhaps, in her own way, she means to help motivate you. Perhaps she thinks she will provoke you into defending yourself.” Then, unexpectedly, his uncle laughs. “Perhaps she means to provoke you into the avatar state.”

“Very funny, Uncle,” Zuko bristles. “Defending myself? How could I defend myself against Azula? She’s my little sister! I’m supposed to protect her!”

“It was only a theory, Nephew. I’m only trying to see things from her perspective.”

“Yeah, well. Don’t hold your breath.” Every time he tries to figure out what goes on in Azula’s head, every time he tries to untangle the twisted knots she had tied in his own, he just ends up more frustrated and confused than before. He walks through today’s kata at half-time once more. At least the dao are sane, he thinks, tightening his grip appreciatively on the new pair Uncle had gotten him for his birthday. Sane, reliable, and really, quite beautiful. 

Zuko throws himself back into the sequence he’d been working on. His uncle doesn’t say another word, but sits and watches him practice until the sun lays low on the horizon, and shares in his celebration when he finally sticks the landing, shaky but true.

_ At sea aboard the Wani, 97AG _

It’s been two weeks since Zuko spoke out of turn during a war meeting. One week since he woke up on board an insultingly small and outdated warship, his mind foggy with painkillers, his face so heavily bandaged he could barely hold his head up. Two hours since the physician on board told him he may never regain use of his left ear or eye again. 

Two hours of reliving what would likely be the last thing he ever heard with his left ear and the last thing he ever saw with his left eye, before they were consumed by his father’s fire.

His uncle’s silence. His sister’s smile.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> two very different conversations about mai

_ Ember Island, 100AG _

“You know, you really ought to go fix things with Mai,” Azula drawls, tossing a scroll onto the growing pile of kindling on the sandy floor behind him, a bit to his left.

“Why,” he growls as he rips the family portrait off the wall. “What’s it to you.” He hates when she approaches from his left, where his scarred eye and ear can’t sense her coming.  _ Does she do that on purpose?  _ He throws the portrait on the pile, then bends to pick up his stone baby handprint that had gone clattering to the floor, setting it back in its spot on the mantel.

“Because she’s my friend, of course. Not to mention your betrothed,” she jeers, and his eyes widen, hands stilling. Hadn’t his banishment and disgrace kind of cancelled that whole arrangement? But then, it did sound like Mai’s parents. Leave it to the notorious social climbers to look past a three-year exile and disfigured face if it meant their daughter could still become the Fire Lady. 

But did that mean…? His stomach swoops just thinking about his sister’s old “suitors.” He swallows hard against the thought as he turns to look at her. “What about you? Did Dad ever decide on someone?” 

She laughs that humorless laugh of hers, picking up her own tiny ceramic baby handprint and turning it over in her fifteen-year-old hands. She had seemed, he thought, as strangely unaffected by their old beach house full of memories as she did now by its ransacking for kindling. “No, Zuzu. Dad became a little disenchanted with arranged marriages after his own reluctant wife started killing Fire Lords. He figured out that I’m smart enough to find my own mate when the time comes for heirs. Of course, now that you’re back, I might not even need an heir, since you’re the first in line.” She looks back at him, eyes flashing in that way that always made his hair stand up on the back of his neck. “But you know what they say about heirs and spares.”

His expression stays neutral on the outside, only because he knows better than to let his composure slip in front of Azula. They say a lot of things about heirs and spares. He doesn’t have to think too hard to know which ones Azula might have in mind.

He makes a note of that thought and files it away for dissection at a later date. Right now he has family heirlooms to burn, and a sister who is surprisingly on board with it. “Come on,” he says, hauling up an armload of paintings and scrolls, “let’s get back to the beach. Where are Mai and Ty Lee?”

“Upstairs. I’ll go get them.” She tosses the ceramic handprint and catches it again. “This thing can go on the fire too. Perfect target to shoot some fireballs at.” 

_ An island between the Western Air Temple and Ember Island, 100AG _

Zuko sits at the shore, watching the evening sun streak the sky beyond his fishing pole. The three fish he’s caught so far don’t look like enough for all six of them, but he can barely summon the energy to be properly annoyed with himself for letting one get away while he was distracted. Off in the distance behind him, he can hear Toph and Katara bickering goodnaturedly, but he can’t catch the details. Something about earthbent tent pegs and penguin-seal-skin tarps. 

Nothing can hold his attention. All he can think about is Mai. 

When Azula had attacked them this morning, she had been alone. When the force of their firefight had sent them both flying off the edges of the airship, hurtling into the vast nothingness surrounding the Western Air Temple, his new allies -  _ friends?  _ \- had been there to catch him. But his sister had no friends left to come to her rescue, only her fire and her crown. And while seconds before he had been afraid she wouldn’t make it, even after everything... seeing her unpinned hair whipping in the wind like that, he knew, in that moment, that everything he’d been fearing was true. Mai had turned on her, and Azula killed her. Probably Ty Lee too. Something in his sister had snapped, and now she was all alone with her unravelling hair and unravelling mind. 

A loud crash of something hitting the ground behind him, punctuated by two cheerful “Hey Zuko!”s, makes him jump about a foot in the air and drop his fishing pole. He turns to see Sokka and Suki giggling at his reaction as they drop their armloads of firewood. 

“Hey,” he replies, eyes downcast as he gathers up the fishing pole again. 

“You alright, man?” Sokka asks. “We were gonna see if you could help us with the fire, but…” 

“What? Oh, yeah, I can help. I was just… uh, thinking about this morning." He breathes deeply, then continues, "do you remember Mai? The girl who-”

“Stood up to Azula and saved our lives at Boiling Rock?” Suki interjects.

“Your girlfriend has some legendary knife-throwing skills, Zuko. I’m gonna ask for a lesson next time we run into her. Or after the war is over,” Sokka says, voice full of admiration.

Zuko squeezes his eyes shut against the pain welling up in his chest. “We’re not going to run into her again, Sokka. She wasn’t there this morning when Azula attacked us.” 

“Oh, shit… Zuko, I’m sorry…I should have noticed...” Sokka trails off. He looks to Suki, and both of them sit down on either side of their friend. Suki puts a gentle hand on Zuko’s shoulder, and he tries not to flinch at it.

“My sister’s done some bad shit to me, but this morning was the first time she actually tried to kill me… I think Mai’s betrayal made her snap. She killed my only real friend.  _ Her _ only friends, too. Ty Lee wasn’t there this morning either.” 

“The chi-blocker with the long braid?” Suki asks, at the same time that Sokka says, “the acrobat girl who tried to flirt with me?” Zuko nods.

“Maybe they both got away somehow,” Suki offers. “Those two bested me and the Kyoshi warriors back when we were trying to help Appa. They’re smarter than they look. Maybe they figured out a way around Azula.” 

“Nobody finds a way around Azula,” Zuko says. “I’m beginning to realize I won’t either. I’m going to have to face her.” And he doesn’t say the rest of his thought out loud, because he still doesn’t want to accept it.  _ I’m going to have to fight her. I’m going to have to kill her.  _

Suki rests her head against one of his shoulders, and Sokka puts a comforting arm around his other. Zuko, as always, is caught off guard by the casual affection, but he tries not to push them away. It’s new to him, the idea of letting himself be comforted. 

“When it happens, we’ll be right behind you,” Sokka says. Suki nods her affirmation against his shoulder. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the aftermath of the war, and the long road home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy ending! finally! everyone gets therapy and ethical non-monogamy woohoo!

_ Fire Nation Royal Palace, 100AG _

Gauzy white curtains flutter faintly in the breeze from the open windows, while the dawn outside them is breaking over the horizon of a new world. The few weeks since his coronation have been a whirlwind of responsibilities and meetings and stress, but every time he wakes up, Mai at his side, he still can’t believe it all really happened. It feels like he must have dreamed it. 

He rises to pace over to the window, to look out at his beautiful city, all the windows glinting faintly in the dew and morning light. He has so much work ahead of him. His path, so winding and twisted for so much of his life, is finally clear, and it is uphill. It always will be. His people are worth it. Peace is worth it. 

He gazes out the window for quite a while, watching the sun rise, feeling it warming his skin. He’s considering getting up to make some tea when he hears Mai stirring behind him, and feels his heart lift. He wastes no time rolling back into bed with her, wrapping his arm around her from behind and kissing the side of her face lightly. “Good morning, Sleepyhead.”

“Mrmph. Good morning, Absurdly-Early-Rising Morning Person.”

“Alright, alright,” he laughs, “I’ll get some tea and let you snooze.”

By the time he finishes his tea, Mai seems to be waking up for real this time, so he asks an attendant for some breakfast to be brought up to their bed. “And a fruit tart,” he adds in a whisper. “Rose petals on top, if you can!”

Their breakfast finds them neck deep in soft, slow morning kisses. The attendant clears her throat awkwardly, and they pull apart, blushing, but glowing. They set out the trays, and Zuko thanks them as they leave. 

Mai snuggles into his shoulder, a cup of steaming tea in her hand and a bowl of cherries in her lap. 

Zuko kisses her hair again. “I still can’t believe you’re alive. I can’t believe I get to wake up next to you. I can’t believe you stood up to Azula for me after how I treated you. I’ve never seen anything so brave.”

“I have. When you stood up to your father.” He feels his eyebrows knit. They still hadn’t really talked much about him leaving. He still hadn’t apologized properly. “At the time I was too hurt to realize it, but… even a lot of loyal Fire Nation citizens were starting to realize he was going too far. And having been friends with Azula for so long… I’ve seen the most terrifying parts of her, and she didn’t get them from your mother.” She squeezes his hand where it’s resting against her hip. “You were the only one who had the courage to  _ do  _ something about it. You showed me there could be another way. And I knew if you could stand up to Ozai to save the whole world, I could stand up to Azula to save you.”

His eyes widen. Had she really thought that all along? But then...“I should have taken you with me! I wish I had told you everything. I’m so sorry about that stupid letter-”

“Shh,” she soothes, “don’t be sorry. You did the right thing. If you had come to me, I would have tried to talk you out of it.” She sits up to look at him properly. “The letter was devastating at the time… But if you had come to me and told me everything, and asked me to come with you, I wouldn’t have been ready to hear it yet. I wasn’t that person yet.” Her sad little smile quirks up a bit. “But if I had become that person sooner, there wouldn’t have been anyone to save you at Boiling Rock.”

“I still wish I hadn’t had to leave you,” he mumbles, curling into her shoulder now, snaking an arm around her waist. “How on earth did you manage to get away? I spent the past month thinking Azula had murdered you on the spot.” His voice breaks, and he pulls her closer. “I thought you died for me. Even after I left you.”

“I would have, if not for Ty Lee. Azula had me cornered, and I was about to face her… She was summoning her lightning, and Ty Lee chi blocked her. She looked as surprised about it as I was.” He feels a deep breath expand in Mai’s chest under his cheek with an imperceptible shudder. “Azula locked us up and left us there.”

“I’m sorry. If I knew you were alive, I would have gotten you out. Gone there and broken you out myself if I had to. Ty Lee too.”

“It’s alright. You didn’t know.” Her hand keeps running softly across his back, up and down. “It’s alright. We’re safe now.”

And that’s all he wants, really. Just these mornings with her, finally safe. Burrowed under the covers with Mai, his face buried in her soft hair. But life is more than just sweet slow mornings, and other strings will always be tugging at his mind. Responsibilities to his nation, to his people, to his friends. Two friends in particular come to mind now, the last two to comfort him like this… in sleeping bags on the floor of the Ember Island house instead of a palace bed. He needs to be truthful with her about them. 

“Mai… there’s something else you should know. This whole time that I thought you were gone, I kind of got... involved with… someone else. But we hadn’t even really worked it out yet, and we were already planning to talk about it soon so I’ll have a good opportunity to let them down easy. They’ll be fine, they have each other-”

“Each other? Zuko, who-?” 

“Uh. Sokka and Suki. The water tribe guy with the boomerang who came with me to Boiling Rock, and the Kyoshi warrior who helped us escape. They were already together.”

“Oh.” He looks at her, anxious to know what she’s thinking, but her face is unreadable even to him. Finally she says, “Zuko, you don’t have to end things with them if you really like them-”

“Wait, what? Are you trying to be self-sacrificing or something?” he asks incredulously. “I don’t want that, Mai, I want you, I loved you first and I want to be with you! Even if-”

“No, Zuko, wait, that’s not what I meant at all. I want to be with you too. It’s just that…” She blushes a bit, and takes a deep breath. “While Ty Lee and I were in prison, not knowing if we’d ever see the light of day again… All we had was each other. We kinda got to be… more than friends, too. So I was just thinking… if you could be okay with my other love, I could be okay with yours too?”

Understanding dawns on him, then relief like a crashing wave. He would have never dared to believe… could he really have… both? “Mai. If you love me enough to stand up to Azula to save me... and Ty Lee loves you enough to do the same... how could I not be okay with someone who loves you that much?”

“You sure you’re not gonna get jealous?” she teases, but he knows her well enough to catch the hint of genuine concern. Which he had certainly earned. 

“I promise. I’ve been working a lot on keeping misplaced anger from fueling things like jealousy. I tried to grow from what you taught me about that. When I was first catching feelings for Sokka and Suki, they were already together, and I had to learn to see that without jealousy.” He brushes her hair back behind her ear, wondering at her. Wondering at how his whole lifetime of absent luck has finally come and found him, all at once. “I didn’t think I’d ever get a second chance at loving you better than I did. I won’t ever let jealousy get in the way of that again.”

He wonders, too, at how even just a year ago, he wouldn’t have known such an arrangement was even possible, much less acceptable and honorable. Come to think of it, it probably still wasn’t legal. But now, he realizes with a flutter of lightness all the more precious for the weight of the crown on his head, he can change that. 

“Will you remind me to repeal the ordinance outlawing same-sex marriage?” he asks her. To his surprise, she snorts. 

“You know everyone else in the world is like, way more chill about that anyway, right? It’s really only Caldera City that still has its collective head up Sozin’s ass.”

“Really? Even in the Fire Nation?” His years of exile had certainly showed him the rest of the world wasn’t bothered by same-sex pairings - his thoughts flash back to Jet kissing him on the ferry to Ba Sing Se, at the time throwing yet another glaring question on the pile of things to be confused about. He supposes his lonely upbringing in the palace must have been even more oversheltered than he realized. But then, Mai’s would have been too. “How would you know?” he asks.

She smiles wryly. “You learn some shit in prison, Zuko. Ty Lee and I didn’t really hide it - we were already in maximum security, we didn’t have much to lose - but none of the other prisoners or guards even batted an eye. Apparently everyone else thinks that law is the world’s biggest joke, made up because the Fire Lord a hundred years ago was bitter his ex married someone else instead of chasing world domination with him.”

Zuko tries to make that fit into what he learned in the dragon bone catacombs. “Wait, Sozin… and Roku?”

“Yeah. Pretty sloppy cover-up in retrospect. Dude didn’t scare up someone to have a kid with until he was, like, eighty, and figured out he’d need an heir pretty soon.”

“That… checks out, actually. Wow. I can’t believe I didn’t see that.” At first he’s just rearranging his history in his head to accommodate the new information, but then something clicks home that makes his old friend anger, so unwelcome as of late, come exploding through him. He bursts up out of bed, barely containing his fury, but this time he’s  _ right _ to be angry, he’s  _ sure _ of it, but Mai looks just a tic more worried than her usual expression, and he tries to do the breathing exercise Uncle showed him for controlling his temper, because Mai shouldn’t have to be scared of him, not after everything. Finally he says, “You mean,” between breaths, “that everything that happened to Azula, everything that happened to _ me _ ,  _ all  _ of this is just because of our bastard great grandfather?!”

Mai looks confused, glancing at the tray of pastries he must have knocked over in his outburst, then back to him. “Well yeah, Zuko, he started the whole war. You know that. Pretty much our whole lives-”

“No, Mai, not the war. I know he started the war. I mean my little sister being forced to entertain prospective husbands twice her age when she was nine years old! Just because some palace guard saw her kiss a girl! I mean her being manipulated into thinking it was a good idea! I mean me not knowing what to do when she- when-” and the rest of that sentence chokes him, because how could it not? He’s never told anyone, because how could he? And Mai looks worried, noticeably so now, but she just stands silently and wraps her arms around him, and he holds onto her. 

“You can tell me anything,” she says softly, “but only if you want to.” She rubs his back soothingly. “I knew a little bit about her potential suitors. She mentioned it once or twice, offhandedly, like it was something to brag about. I knew how to read between her lines though, even then. One of my cousins thought about petitioning Ozai for her betrothal and I pinned him to a wall. Told him if he ever came within ten feet of Azula I’d do it again, and not by his clothes that time.”

“You should have been her big brother then,” he says hollowly. “Sounds like you protected her better than I ever did.” 

She takes him by both hands and leads him back to his bed. “You’re being too hard on yourself, Zuko. No one could expect you to protect her while you were busy trying to protect yourself  _ from _ her. Not to mention from your dad. You did the best you could with what you had.”

He buries his face in his hands. “You don’t  _ know _ .” 

She rests her head on his shoulder. “One of Ty Lee’s Kyoshi warrior friends introduced her to a psychiatrist recently. She said Dr. Sung has really helped her make some sense out of… well, everything. Make some sense out of growing up with Azula. Maybe you could make an appointment with her too.”

“Alright. Sure,” he mumbles. Another meeting in his staggering schedule. 

“I’ll go find a messenger.” She hugs him close again. “It’s alright, Zuko. She can’t hurt you anymore.”

_ That’s not the problem, _ he doesn’t say out loud.  _ I’m still hurting her. _

_ Obsidian Island Mental Health Center, 101AG _

His footsteps echo thunderously in the stone hallway. The air in the institution is cool and damp, he notices, not at all conducive to firebending. Probably better that way… but probably as uncomfortable for her as it is for him, and it hurts his heart to think of her shivering. 

And then there, always, next to the sad clench in his chest when he thinks of his little sister, is the swoop of fear in his stomach. He has learned, now, not to stomp it away. Dr. Sung has been teaching him to acknowledge and respect these emotional responses, and then act in spite of them, rather than repressing and denying them as he always had. 

Dr. Sung had been trying to teach him a lot of things. She said his sister had been manipulated and abused, and in turn had manipulated and abused others. She said it still didn’t excuse Azula’s treatment of him, or Ty Lee, or Mai. But it made him feel a growing sympathy for the defeated monster who wasn’t really a monster at all, who had always been, deep down, just a neglected child desperate for approval and affection. She had been held to impossible standards, just like he had. But unlike him, she had shattered them one by one, wearing herself thinner until she herself had shattered. And she never had the unconditional love he had from Mom, or from Uncle, or even from Mai. On his worst days, he still blames himself. 

But he’s making progress. He wouldn’t have finally resolved to come here if he wasn’t.

He reaches her room. An attendant in medic robes bows to him, and he bites back a grimace at the show of deference that still makes him uncomfortable.

“My Lord,” she addresses him. “Not to… question your authority, your highness, but her doctors have still found visitation unadvisable… they’re working with her tirelessly, but she doesn’t seem… receptive…”

“It’s alright,” Zuko reassures the attendant. “I know she doesn’t want to see me. But I need to see her.” He hates how carefully and anxiously the attendant speaks to him. The palace attendants have finally begun to realize he’s not going to assault them for insufficient groveling the way his predecessors would have, but he supposes that word hasn’t gotten out here to the mental health facility yet, secluded as it was on a forested island.

“Very well, sir. She is partially chi-blocked for safety-”

“Chi-blocked?” Zuko’s eyebrows knit.

“Yes, sir, her bending and large motor skills are blocked. She can still do fine motor things, like pick up a pencil and maneuver her wheelchair.”

“Are you sure that’s necessary? I sent instructions to restrain her as little as possible, I want her to be comfortable...”

“Well, sir, we’ve been trying to give her more agency, but every time we unblock her chi, she burns something. Usually herself. Last time it happened, she burned the ends of her bangs off again.”

Zuko sighs heavily. Will seeing him even do her any good? He just wants her to have the unconditional love she never got. He fears it may be too late. But he has to try. 

He opens the door. 

Her quarters are plain, but roomy enough, and well-lit. The furniture is sturdy and well-made, but peppered with burn marks. Artist’s paper covered in scribbled writing and angry-looking charcoal drawings litter the desk and the bed, and between them is a wheelchair, where Azula is sitting with her back to him. 

“Hello, Zuzu.” 

“Hey, Zula.” He wants to ask how she’s doing, but the dullness of her hair and the brittleness of her voice stop the words in his throat. While he has been recovering, she has been disintegrating. 

“You here to gloat? Only took you half a year,” she tries to drawl, but the authority her voice used to command so effortlessly is desiccated into a snarl. 

“No, Zula. I just came to see how you were doing.” When she doesn’t answer, he takes a few slow steps toward her. “Is it okay if I sit?” He asks, gesturing toward her bed. 

She spins her wheelchair around to look at him with blazing eyes and a barking laugh. “The  _ Fire Lord _ is asking  _ my _ permission to sit?” she spits. “Go ahead, Zuzu! Agni knows there’s fuck-all I can do about it!” She wheels herself over to her desk and starts scribbling and muttering to herself. “Block my chi and then ask if you can sit. What if I say no? Gonna challenge me to an Agni Kai?”

He sits on the edge of the bed and watches her furious scribbling. Under her tangled curtain of hair, her arms look thin and sallow, littered with little round marks that look a bit like old burns and a bit like fingerprints. 

“I asked first to respect you, Azula, not to mock you. I didn’t come here to gloat. I came because I love you.” 

She scoffs and keeps writing. 

“Do you remember playing kuai ball on Ember Island?” he asks her. Her scribbling finally slows.

“Of course I remember, dum-dum, that was only six months ago.”

“No, I mean when we were kids. When Mom and Dad used to take us.” He sees her flinch at the invocation of their parents, and he knows the feeling well. 

“Do you remember how many hours I spent letting you vault off my shoulders? I did that because I love you.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Zuko. You did that because you were afraid of me.”

And that catches him off guard, because to some extent, she’s right. Even then, she could manipulate him. But that wasn’t all it was. That was never all it was. 

“Do you remember how I used to braid your hair to keep it out of your face while we were practicing? Or during thunderstorms, back when you used to be afraid of them? I always offered, even though you never asked. That wasn’t just me being afraid to say no to you.”

“...Yeah. I remember.” Azula sets her pencil down, and starts rifling through her papers. Eventually she lands on what she’s looking for: a sealed envelope, far neater than the rest of the tempestuous explosion of paper and charcoal and ink it’s buried in. She wheels over and holds it out to him, eyes looking past him, or maybe right through him. It’s addressed to Ty Lee.

“Could you send this with your messenger hawk,” she says flatly. 

Zuko takes it, wondering what could possibly be written on that page. His sister was never good at apologies, even when she knew she owed them. But perhaps she actually had been making some progress here. 

“Of course, Azula,” he says. She turns away again, but doesn’t wheel herself back to her desk. He hesitates a moment, then gathers his courage. “Would you mind if I braided your hair?” 

“It’s not like I can stop you,” she growls, but she still doesn’t move away, and she doesn’t flinch when his gentle hands meet her scraggly locks. 

Slowly, achingly slowly, he begins to work the knots out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for stickin with me yall, i know this ones a doozy but i hope you enjoyed it! if you like the zuko and azula love each other but are bad at it dynamic, i have another shorter fic about azula coming up with ursa's plan to kill azulon and save zuko, called abrahams daughter. and if you like tortured complex villain siblings, i also have one about cashmere and gloss from the hunger games called even though it all went wrong. thanks for reading! i live for comments so pls tell me what u think! also i definitely drew inspiration from elements in some other azula & zuko fics (hair braiding, fear of thunderstorms, etc) and i'm not sure if some of them are common fandom tropes orrrrr someone's original idea, so if anything looks too much like something you already wrote please let me know and i'd be happy to credit you!


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